Automobile Tire Print 1953

Robert Rauschenberg made this artwork by driving a car over paper with an inked tire, and I find that so incredibly cool. It’s like the ultimate gesture of process art. The way the black ink is laid down—sometimes thick and dense, sometimes thin and broken—it's a record of movement, speed, and the unpredictable interactions between the tire and the paper. You can almost feel the grit and the force. Look at how the texture changes, from solid to broken. That one part, where the ink almost disappears, is so evocative. It is less about making a static image and more about capturing a dynamic event. Rauschenberg reminds me of John Cage, finding beauty in the everyday, in the accidental. Both invite us to reconsider what art can be and where we might find it. It's about embracing ambiguity and seeing the world with fresh eyes.